Mongolian Beef

 

Ingredients:
1 lb flank or sirloin steak, thinly sliced crosswise
1/4 cup cornstarch
3 tbsp canola oil
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
3 cloves chopped garlic
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes (adjust to change heat)
green onions, for garnish

Directions:
After slicing the steak thinly, pat dry with a paper towel. Put cornstarch in a large Ziploc bag and add the steak pieces. Toss to coat. If needed, place beef slices in a strainer and shake off excess corn starch.
Heat wok to medium high and add the oil to the wok. Add the beef and cook, stirring until it is all browned.

While meat is cooking, combine ginger, garlic, water, soy sauce, brown sugar and red pepper flakes in a bowl.

When meat is sufficiently browned, pour the sauce back into the wok and let it cook along with the meat.

The longer it cooks, the thicker it will become. Turn off heat when desired thickness is reached.

Serve over rice or quinoa and top with green onions.

Serves 2

Source: www.mmmcafe.blogspot.com

Weekly Dinner Menu and Grocery List Week 6

 Chopped Beef Sandwich & Potato Salad

 Cheddar Broccoli Loaded Baked Potato Skins with Avocado Cream Sauce
Serve alongside your choice of meat. We are going to serve ours with steak.

Chicken Manicotti

Serve with a Caesar salad & garlic bread

Korean Beef

Served over a bed of rice with a vegetable of your choice.

Pepperoni & Sausage Pizza Puffs

Served with a side salad.

French Toast Casserole

 

This is another one of those great Saturday morning easy recipes because you prepare everything the night before. Who doesn't love to wake up with your coffee on a Sat or Sun and just pop your delicious casserole in the oven and do nothing but sip your coffee while you smell the oven do all the work!?!?! Says no one!! ;) Ha ha! I hope you enjoy this one. I know my family did. Happy Friday Y'all!

Ingredients:

1 (16oz) loaf Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Swirl Bread, cut into cubes
6 eggs, beaten
3 cups milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
confectioners' sugar

Directions:

1. Place bread cubes in greased 3 quart shallow baking dish. Mix eggs, milk and vanilla. Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour or overnight. Uncover.

2. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes or until golden. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. Serve with maple syrup, if desired.

Source: allrecipes.com

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

Teacher Appreciation Week in Texas is May 6-10th this year which is 11 days away!! And I know all of you want to SPOIL your kids teachers this year right!?!?! Well, after doing some searching I have put together a list of 10 really cute ideas. Not only are they cute, but they also each come with free printables!! I LOVE it when I find free printables because that means I don't have to recreate the cute tag/card for the gift. Just click on the picture or the source below the picture to direct you to the website. I hope that this list has given you some ideas or better yet you are able to use one of them. :)

Source: Eighteen 25

Source: Eighteen 25

Source: Eighteen 25

Source: Tatertots & Jello

Source: Eighteen 25

Source: Sweet Metal Moments

Source: The Busy Budgeting Mama

Source: Tammy Mitchell Designs

Source: SkipTo My Lou

 

Source: Eighteen 25

How To Clean Your Grout

I can't believe I am actually writing today to tell you how I am cleaning the grout in our kitchen!.!. What has my life come to! ;) Our grout, in the high traffic areas of our kitchen, have been bothering me for weeks/months now. It is SO nasty!  I didn't want to spend the money to have our grout cleaned so I thought I'd tackle it myself. My husband advised against it because he thought I'd hate it once I got into it, but I actually surprised him and even myself by how much I enjoyed getting it done. It was so rewarding because you could see such a difference immediately while cleaning. Also, it's really cheap to do it yourself. It would have cost us close to $100 to get it done and for me to do it cost around $3.

I used two ingredients:
1/4 cup clorox
3/4 cup baking soda

It makes a paste that you just rub into the grout and then you scrub away with a grout brush, tooth brush, or anything narrow so you can get in between your tile. I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture how well it cleaned the grout, but you really can in person. ;) My goodness, I never thought I'd be writing about cleaning grout!! LOL!

I love so much the way it looks! I am really happy. :)

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Canvas Tutorial

A friend of mine had seen a canvas print that read Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in girly colors that she thought was SO cute. But the problem was that she has a little boy and could never find one in boy colors. So, she asked me if I thought I could paint on canvas something similar in boy colors and I told her that I'd give it a try. Well, I tried and I thought it turned out pretty darn cute! I wanted to share with you how I made it so if you wanted to make one yourself you could.

You will need:

1 canvas
paint pens
tape
Photoshop elements (or some way to type the words and flip horizontally for printing)
wax paper
cardstock
glue stick
spray paint

Directions:

1. Tape off the the lines on your canvas.

2. Spray paint any color of your choice and let dry.

3. While your canvas is drying open up Photoshop and start a new project. Put in the size of your canvas in inches and make sure your resolution is 300 pixels/inch. Type in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or the saying of your choice. Also, in any font you like. Flatten your image, reverse your image horizontally, and then save.

4. Cut and glue wax paper onto card stock and print.

5. Remove your wax paper from the card stock so that when you are placing it onto your canvas you have a better idea of where you are placing it.

6. Place ink side down onto your canvas. Be sure not to move the paper because the wax is wet and it will smear.

7. Get a spoon or something that you can use to rub the ink onto the canvas.

8. Gently remove the wax paper. You now have a light image on your canvas of your print.

9. Go over the ink with the paint pen colors of your choice.

10. Once you have gone over all of the areas let it dry. You now have a beautiful piece of art on canvas!! I hope you like yours as much as I like the way mine turned out. :)

Happy Painting!! :)

Bucca Di Beppo Spicy Chicken Rigatoni

My daughter loves almost all pasta dishes! She also loves Alfredo sauce! Well, yesterday we celebrated her 15th birthday and what did she want for dinner?!?!? PASTA! I hadn't ever cooked this recipe before and hated to try something new on her day, but after showing her the recipe we both agreed that we thought it would turn out delicious and it did!

Ingredients:

2 Boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon coarse black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups Alfredo sauce (I use store bought)
2 cups Marinara sauce (I use store bought of this also)
1/2 cup cooked peas
1 lb (16oz) rigatoni noodles, cooked al dente
2 tablespoons butter
Sprinkle of fresh Parmesan cheese and a pinch of red pepper flake for garnish

Directions:

In a large skillet on medium high heat, heat two tablespoons olive oil. Saute garlic, red pepper flakes, and coarse black pepper for 2-3 minutes. Add in thin strips of chicken breast, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and cook until chicken is cooked through. This should only take a few minutes because the chicken is cut thin.
Add in marinara and Alfredo sauces and stir. Let the sauces simmer for about 10 minutes. To the sauce/chicken, add two tablespoons butter and 1/2 cup peas (we put our peas on the side). Stir until the butter melts. Combine chicken/sauce mixture with cooked pasta. Garnish with fresh Parmesan cheese, and a pinch or two of red pepper flakes.

Source: www.sixsisterstuff.com